King Offa 757AD -796AD Offa Was Ruler of Mercia, One Of
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King Offa 757AD -796AD (Mercian King and Bretwalda of England) Offa was ruler of Mercia, one of the most powerful kingdoms in Anglo-Saxon England that was equivalent to an extended version of the English Midlands region that we still have today. He ruled from 757AD until July 796AD. At the height of his power he was accorded the title of Bretwalda or overlord of England and its many petty kings. Offa was the son of Thingfrith and a descendant of Eowa. As such Offa had a claim on the throne of Mercia because Eowa was brother to King Penda. Penda was Mercian King from 625AD - 655AD. Offa came to the throne after a period of strife within Mercia. These events were sparked off by the assassination of the Mercian King Aethelbald. He had ruled Mercia from 716AD to 757AD and was allegedly killed by his own bodyguards. Aethelbald was then replaced as king by Beonred. Offa defeated Beonred before the end of 757AD and from that point Offa ruled the lands of Mercia until his death in July 796AD. The troubled background that led to Offa claiming the Mercian throne meant that in the early years of his reign he was forced to consolidate his rule within his kingdom. He was also forced to re-establish his over-lordship and control over the neighboring Anglo-Saxon territories of Hwicce and the Magonsæte. These were what we today would call Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire. At that time there was no single English ruler as the country was divided up into seven different Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Within these petty kingdoms three major power blocs emerged and these were Wessex in the South, Northumbria in the North and Offa’s Mercia in the middle. Offa took advantage of Mercia’s central position within England to extend his influence over a larger and larger geographic area with each passing decade. After securing his control over Merica, Offa went on to take advantage of instability within the Saxon kingdom of Kent to establish himself as overlord there too. The Mercians and Kentishmen fought a battle at Otford in 776AD but the outcome of the battle is not a matter of historical record. He had also gained control of Sussex by 771AD. At the height of his power in the 780s he extended Mercian supremacy over most of southern England. He allied himself with King Beorhtric of Wessex, who was married to Offa's daughter. Some accounts suggest that at this stage the King of Wessex recognised Offa as his overlord. We do know for certain that Offa became the overlord of East Anglia and had the King of East Anglia beheaded in 794AD. This was possibly for rebelling against him but we do not know the real reason for certain. However despite being a Christian king Offa came into conflict with the Church. He would not be the first or the last English ruler to be involved in such a dispute. It is interesting for us as members of the Commemorative Order of Thomas of Acon to note that Offa’s conflict with the English Church stemmed from a dispute with the Archbishop of Canterbury of the day. The Archbishop was churchman known as Jænberht. The basis of the argument was the Archbishop’s refusal to consecrate Offa’s son, Ecgfrith, as future King of Merica. Perhaps Offa would have been tempted to utter those eternal words ‘Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?’ Offa is also credited with introducing the silver penny as the basis of English coinage and 240AD silver pennies were deemed equivalent to one troy pound of silver. His financial reforms were the foundation stone for the nation’s coinage for hundreds of years thereafter. Many surviving coins from Offa's reign carry elegant depictions of him. Some of his coins carry images of his wife, Cynethryth. She was said to be the only Anglo- Saxon queen ever to be depicted on any coin. Many historians regard Offa as the most powerful Anglo-Saxon king before Alfred the Great. However his dominance never extended to the northern Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria, though he gave one of his daughters in marriage to the Northumbrian King Æthelred I in 792AD. Historians once saw his reign as part of a process leading to a unified England but this is no longer the typically held view. In the words of Professor Simon Keynes of Cambridge University "Offa was driven by a lust for power, not a vision of English unity; and what he left was a reputation, not a legacy." Offa left no lasting dynastic legacy because his son ruled for only 141 days as king and replaced by a distant relative. Professor Keynes’ view therefore appears to be both accurate and correct. However the power and prestige that Offa attained in his lifetime secured him long lasting fame and it is fair to describe him as one of the most significant rulers Anglo-Saxon England. Unfortunately no contemporary biography of Offa survives. A key source of information for this period of English history is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. A page from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The Chronicle was created in Wessex in the time of King Alfred and copies were distributed to different monasteries and abbeys around England. These copies were updated by different authors at different times and in different locations. Given its origins this source is thought to be biased in favour of the rulers of Wessex and therefore may not be an accurately account of what was truly achieved by Offa. He was after all a Mercian ruler and not a Wessex King. His influence also spread beyond Anglo-Saxon England itself. In Wales we know all too well about Offa’s Dyke. It was almost certainly built in his reign and still stands today as a testimony to the extensive resources Offa had at his command and his ability to organize them effectively. It is assumed to have been built because Offa was frequently in conflict with the various Welsh kingdoms along his Western border. There was a battle between the Mercians and the Welsh at Hereford in 760AD and Offa is recorded as campaigning against the Welsh in 778AD, 784AD and 796AD in the 10th century Annales Cambriae. This was a Latin account of events of the time written by Welsh Churchmen at St David’s. As a result of these numerous wars Offa constructed a great earthen barrier that runs approximately along the border between England and Wales. It is mentioned by the Welsh monk Asser in his biography of King Alfred "A certain vigorous king called Offa ... had a great dyke built between Wales and Mercia from sea to sea" Most historians find no reason to doubt Asser's attribution. Early names for the dyke in both Welsh and English also support the view that it was built by King Offa. Despite Asser's claim that the dyke ran "from sea to sea" it is currently thought that the original structure only covered about two-thirds of the length of the border. In the north it ends near Llanfynydd which is less than five miles from the coast, while in the south it stops at Rushock Hill, near Kington in Herefordshire which is of course a number of miles inland. The total length of this section of dyke is about 64 miles. Other earthworks also exist along the Welsh border and of these Wat's Dyke is one of the largest. However it is not possible to date them relative to each other and so it cannot be accurately determined whether Offa's Dyke was a copy of or the inspiration for the construction Wat's Dyke. It would seem that the debate here would be similar to that over the origins of the ‘Chicken or the Egg’. The construction of the dyke suggests that it was built to create an effective barrier and to command views into Wales. This in turn implies that Offa was free to choose the best location for the dyke. There were 8th century settlements to the west of the dyke that had names that imply they were English. It may be that in choosing the location of the barrier the Mercians were surrendering some territory to Welsh. Alternatively it may be that these settlements had already been retaken by the Welsh, implying a defensive role for Offa’s barrier. The effort and expense that must have gone into building the dyke are impressive and suggest that the king who had it built (be that Offa or someone else) had considerable resources at his disposal. A further theory is that a number of earthwork dykes and defenses existed dotted along the Mercian / Wales border before Offa became king. Offa may have joined these previous constructions together with sections of his own dyke filling in the gaps left by previous Anglo-Saxon rulers. Given that this era was what was once called ‘The Dark Ages’ we may never truly know. Offa's diplomatic relations with Europe are documented for posterity but appear to belong only to the last dozen years of his reign. In about 789AD King Charlemagne proposed that his son, Charles, marry one of Offa's daughters. Offa countered with a request that his son, Ecgfrith, should also marry Charlemagne's daughter Bertha. Charlemagne was however outraged by the request and broke off contact with England. He even banned English ships from landing in his ports. In 796AD Charlemagne wrote to Offa and this correspondence between the two kings produced the first surviving documents in English diplomatic history.